'As Nasty As They Wanna Be,' 25 Years On

Twenty-five years ago today a nation still adjusting to the idea
that Ronald Reagan was no longer its president saw the release of
an album called As Nasty As They Wanna Be by a Miami
hip-hop collective named 2 Live Crew. While the band’s arrest and
subsequent trial for obscenity have justly received the lion’s
share of historical coverage, it seems fitting on this anniversary
that we recognize the important work the band did in raising
awareness for and discussion of horniness in American society. It
is difficult to comprehend (or remember, if you are of a certain
age) just how heavy the proscriptions against the mere mention of
horniness were back in 1989—particularly living as we do in an era
where apps are competing wildly to be your medium of choice in
which to express your desire to or accomplishment in having already
been able to do sex in its many forms to people you know so that
other people you know can read about it—but many Americans found it
so difficult or shameful to even admit that they might be
experiencing bouts of horniness that they were unable to use the
euphemisms of the period to articulate such feelings (these were
mostly metaphors relating to the plumbing and chimney-sweeping
trades). If you were suddenly transported back to 1989 right now
the first thing you would notice was how people were actually able
to pay attention to anything for more than thirty seconds, but the
second thing that would make a powerful impression on you is just
how embarrassed and scandalized the everyday citizens of that time
would be as soon as you mentioned horniness, which, as someone who
lives here in 2014, you would do almost immediately, because why
would we ever bother to have a feeling that we didn’t tell the
whole goddamn world about? (At this point it is necessary to
mention the unpleasant fact that some of the ethnic and racial
characterizations set forth on the album are what the social
theorists of the era would describe as “problematic,” but, without
seeking to minimize those quite valid complaints, this is not the
forum in which to debate those matters, plus you need to weigh the
offset value of introducing a whole new generation to the work of
Stanley Kubrick.) In any event, the importance of this record in
regards to the public discourse surrounding horniness cannot be
overstated. Today we celebrate an album that, as much as anything
else in the time since its release, made us who we are: a nation
that is indeed as nasty as we want to be.